


Rats, Cats, and Nosy Neighbors

by hufflepirate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Cats, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dogs, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Aid, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Grocery Shopping, Heist, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Mugging, Neighbors, Pizza, Platonic Cuddling, Police, Rats, Rescue Missions, Service Dogs, Sharing a Bed, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tree Climbing, Wild Animal Rehab, break-ins, guinea pigs, injured animals, lab animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-14 05:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11776521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: Animal-loving college student Keith Kogane has a one-bedroom apartment, a job as a bike messenger, and 6 quirky neighbors with boundary issues.  In the months following the loss of his beloved cat, a series of run-ins with other animals helps him heal - and so do his friends in the apartment building.  When another cat comes along, will he be ready to move on?





	1. Raticate

"What is it?" Jody didn't even bother to say hello, taking a step out from behind the front desk so she could get a better view on the bundle in his arms.

"It was stuck in a storm drain!" he told her, keeping the animal carefully covered by his jacket so that it couldn't bite him. "Its leg is hurt."

Jody narrowed her eyes at him. " _Keith_..."

He sighed. "A rat. But it's _hurt_!"

Jody shook her head, closing her eyes and then rolling them when she opened them again. "Alright. I'll tell the doc. _Please_ tell me it's at least the kind of rat you think might be an escaped pet and not the kind of rat you're pretty sure is a wild animal."

Keith bit his lip, and she laughed, a sharp, sudden bark. "I'll tell her that, too."

Keith smiled apologetically. "Thanks."

The vet hadn't even brought his jacket back to him when his pager buzzed. "Shoot!" he said, glancing at the address, "This is gonna take a while. Can I just - can I come back later? Do you still have my phone number on file? I gotta-"

Jody smiled fondly at him, shaking her head again. "Go. We'll be here when you get back."

He nodded and then dashed out the door and back to his bike.

One delivery turned into another, which was lucky, because he still had bills to pay off at the clinic from - he shoved the thought away, focusing on the present.  It was lucky that he was getting so many jobs today because the _rat_ would need to be paid for. Other concerns, like how much he missed his recently departed cat, or how cold it was riding without his jacket, could be shoved down into the wheels of his bike to spin away behind him.

He got back to the clinic just in time to go off call. They hadn't added any new bills to his account because they had a small preexisting budget for treating wild animals.  That was a relief. They were also not, officially, supposed to be rehabilitating wild rats.  That was less of a relief.

It was obvious even to Keith's relatively untrained eye that the rat was not happy about being caged, and even less happy about being in a cage that moved when it was picked up. He immediately abandoned any thought of trying to get the rat into his backpack or strap the cage to his back. He'd have to carry it, and either ride slowly, or walk his bike and his rat at the same time.

Jody came to the same realization a second later. "Oh... why don't I give you and your little buddy a ride home? My SUV's big enough for my Great Dane, so I'm sure it's big enough for your bike to go in the back." She smiled like it was a joke, and he smiled back.

Keith usually wouldn't take that kind of offer because he didn't like feeling like he owed people, but he couldn't say no with the rat squeaking at him in distress. "Sure," he answered after a moment, "Thank you!" He put the cage back down on the counter and the rat almost immediately calmed down a little. He looked down at it. He'd made the right decision.

"Ok. As long as the evening receptionist is on time, I get off in half an hour. You just sit tight."

He nodded and sat down to wait, peering into the cage and looking into the rat's tiny dark eyes as best as he could. "It's ok, buddy. Once I get you home, it'll be nice and calm for your recovery. And then I'll let you go."

 

* * *

 

When Jody pulled up to Keith's apartment complex, his next-door neighbors, Lance and Hunk, were coming out the front door with Lance's mostly-blue-heeler on a leash in front of them. As Keith got his bike out of the back of her car, the other two nudged each other and then turned to come toward him and Jody. Keith groaned.

"Your friends?" Jody asked.

"Neighbors."

"Sooo," Lance said, dragging the word out as he slid up to them, checking Jody out, "Who's this, Keith?"

Jody had ignored Lance completely, bending down to introduce herself to his dog, then scratching Blue's ears when she turned out to be friendly in spite of the fact that Jody smelled like other animals.

"Jody works at my vet's office," Keith explained, shoving Lance away so he could get to the car door to grab the cage from the back seat. "She was helping me get this little guy back here."

"Whoa, cool, is that a rat?" Hunk asked, peering into the cage.

"Yeah," Keith answered, "He was trapped in a storm drain, but I got him out. His leg's hurt."

Hunk nodded. "Cool! What's his-"

"You know," Lance interrupted, " _Some_ people just play Pokémon Go."

"And _some_ people can't appreciate animals that don't _bark_."

Hunk stepped between them, pretending it was so he could look into the cage a little better, but Keith knew he was really trying to break up their thousandth argument about this.

Keith had nothing against dogs, usually, and nothing against Blue herself, in spite of her unfortunate connection to Lance. She was one of the sweetest dogs he'd ever met, if a little too high-energy to be in an apartment that small. But Lance was 100% a dog person, and always seemed to be trying to be as annoying as possible about it. He'd insulted Keith and his cat almost enough times to put him off dogs forever.

"He does _kind_ of look like a Raticate," Hunk offered helpfully. "Are you gonna call him that?"

Before Keith could fully make up his mind, Jody had gotten her fill of Blue's kisses and stood up. "I should be going. You remember what you're supposed to be looking out for?"

Keith nodded, only to be prevented from actually repeating back his instructions by the fact that without Jody's attention to distract her, Blue had realized he was carrying a small furry creature.

The dog leapt forward, jumping toward him so hard that she almost pulled Lance over. Her sudden barking wasn't particularly aggressive, as far as such things went, but it was still frightening with her straining to reach the cage in his arms. He stepped back, letting Lance pull Blue backward away from him and cradling the carrier to his chest as Raticate hissed back at her.

" _Hey_!" Lance shouted, "Hey! No! It's ok, girl. It's ok."

"Huh," Hunk said, "Maybe you'd better go inside. She's usually not like that with other animals, but I'm sure once they're inside she'll figure out he's a pet."

Keith nodded, ignoring for the moment the fact that Raticate really _wasn't_ a pet, said a quick goodbye to Jody, and made a break for it.

Inside the building, he opted for the stairs instead of the elevator. He didn't like the idea of standing around while the rat was this upset, and he wasn't sure how well the rat would handle the elevator. Even with all the vet visits they'd made at the end, Khafra had never quite gotten used to the elevator, and he didn't want to stress Raticate any more than he had already. He felt like he was torturing the poor thing, but he wasn't sure what else he was supposed to do. He couldn't let him go until his leg was better.

Once they were back in his apartment and he could set Raticate's cage down again, things got better, but Keith still spent 10 minutes sitting next to the cage and trying to calm the rat down. He eventually decided that even his most soothing voice could only do so much when he was talking to a wild animal, and got back up to take stock of things.

He was almost out of food for himself, but he had enough leftovers for tonight, and the vet had sent some food home with him for Raticate. He had homework, and a lot of it, but it was only Friday night, so that could wait for now.

Good. That was all good.  Now he just had to settle in and figure out what to do about the fact that he had a rat in his living room.

He drifted toward his fridge as he thought about it, opening the door and reaching for the leftover pizza that was - gone. He bit his lip to keep himself from cursing and stalked over toward his balcony, grabbing the red Solo cup on a string that he used to communicate with his upstairs neighbor and pulling on it slightly too hard.

He'd met Pidge when she showed up on his balcony unexpectedly, pounding on the door and waving to be let in. She was a student at the university, too, doing a dual degree in computer science and electrical engineering, and in her spare time, she hacked things. Things that apparently sometimes got her into the kind of trouble that makes people scale buildings and knock on strangers' doors. Now that they were friends, though, she mostly just had boundary issues.  Like breaking into his apartment and stealing his leftovers.

Cup in hand, he pulled the cord next to it, ringing the bell a balcony above him that would tell Pidge he had something to say, and hoped she would pick up before he was forced to do a little building-scaling of his own. When an answering tug came, he immediately launched into a diatribe against her.  The sound waves travelled up the tight string and into and out of the first pivot-point cup (which turned the string to go around the corner of the balcony), and dispersed uselessly against the top railing until she got the second pivot-point cup fixed. 

"Whoa, there, turbo," she said, by way of hello, "I missed, like, all of that."

"You ate my pizza!" he said into the cup.

"Oh. That. Sorry, I was caught up and didn't have time to get lunch. I ordered Chinese for dinner if you want some, though!"

Keith felt himself deflating. He got angry easily, but once the wind was out of his sails, he didn't always keep ahold of his anger very well. Especially not where Pidge was concerned. He had learned, by now, that it was useless being angry with her because she was going to do what she was going to do, either way. "Fine. But _you're_ bringing it down _here_ this time."

"Can do. Let me make sure I fed Java and I'll be down in a few."

He grunted in agreement, and never mind that grunts didn't translate particularly well via string-and-plastic-cup phones. He wasn't entirely sure Pidge was still pulling on her end anyway.

Unlike most of the rest of them, Pidge hadn't moved into this apartment complex because it was animal-friendly. She'd moved in because it was cheap, a nice medium distance from campus, and close enough to the public library that she could make occasional, strategic use of their Wi-Fi. It wasn't until Keith found a kitten while he was out on delivery a few months ago that Pidge had joined the rest of them in doting pet ownership. Khafra never _had_ been able to get along with other animals for long, and the kitten had needed another home.

Java was beautiful, sleek and fast, with bright green eyes. She was jet black, her fur setting the green in her eyes off dramatically, and Pidge always joked that she looked like a panther, like she should be lounging in a tree in the jungle. She was also deeply inquisitive, much like Pidge herself.  They were a good fit for each other.

He'd been excited about Pidge taking the kitten, because he figured having a cat would remind her that there were other living things in the world. She was so happy with just her machines that he sometimes wondered if she forgot there was anything else. It hadn't worked out quite as well as he'd hoped, because she was still stealing his food, but at least she'd thought to replace it this time. Sort of.

When he answered the door, he was surprised to find Pidge accompanied by Shiro, the neighbor across the hall from Hunk and Lance. Shiro was 7 years older, and they'd become friends because Pidge, Lance, and Hunk were all meddley anyway. He was an Air Force veteran, and he'd been captured and held as a POW for a few months before making it home. He had PTSD and a prosthetic arm and a service dog, and he worked at a warehouse on the other side of town. They liked him a lot.

"Hey, Keith," Pidge said, walking through the door unbidden and dumping a bag full of takeout boxes onto the bar that separated his kitchen from his living room. "When I checked on Shiro, he hadn't eaten either, so I figured I'd bring the party to you."

Shiro, never one to just barge in, stood in the doorway with another bag in one hand and the handle of Atama's vest in the other.

"Come on in, Shiro! I'm just settling in for the evening. Atama's cool with rats, right? I mean, she's a trained service dog, so I assume-"

"She _should_ be but I-"

Pidge interrupted, diving suddenly toward the cage to peer in at Raticate. "Whoa, Keith, when'd you get a _rat_?"

"I found him in a storm drain. Be careful, he's not tame."

"What happened to his leg?"

"I don't know. But he's pretty stressed out, so leave him alone."

Shiro nodded like that had been addressed to him, too, even though it hadn't. "Don't worry. I'll keep Atama over with us, by the kitchen."

Keith nodded back.

Atama, a sweet and _very_ well-trained black lab, seemed completely unfazed by the rat itself, though she did seem to be looking up at Shiro a little more often than usual.

Keith realized, with a sudden flash of guilt, that he should probably have asked if _Shiro_ was ok with rats. He didn't know for _sure_ that there had been rats when Shiro was a prisoner, but it seemed like the kind of thing that _could_ be true.

The last time Shiro had had a major flashback, brought on by Lance and Hunk watching a war movie in the middle of the night with the sound loud enough to hear across the hall, it had been awful. They'd all vowed to be more careful about paying attention to his triggers, especially with how thin their walls were, and now here he was, springing a rat on Shiro without warning him first.

Keith blushed suddenly. "I uhh - should I cover his cage? I can if it's better!"

Shiro smiled, but Keith wasn't sure if he'd realized what he was really asking. "No, really, she'll be fine. Whatever's better for him."

Keith nodded, turning back toward Raticate so that he didn't have to look Shiro in the eye. "I don't know what's better for him. I wish he were less scared, but it's not like I can let him out of the cage to run around and figure out the space, because he's not socialized or anything."

"Yeah, he keeps hissing at me," Pidge said from the spot on the floor where she was still peering curiously into the cage, oblivious to the hissing.

"Leave him alone, Pidge," Shiro said.

Pidge pushed herself up on the floor, "Yeah, fine. I'm hungry anyway."

Over dinner, talk of Raticate drifted to discussions of the packages he'd delivered during his shift and then to the classes he'd been in this morning. Pidge reported back on her own classes (with the exception of the gen-ed class she'd ditched again), and Shiro talked about his day at work.

By the time they'd finished eating and were just chatting comfortably, Keith realized that Raticate had stopped sounding upset. That was good. Shiro seemed relaxed, too, and Atama was fully calm again. Maybe this whole Raticate thing was going to be ok.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Allura barged into his apartment while he was getting ready for work, Pidge following closely behind her. He remembered, suddenly, that Allura kept mice, and felt bad that he hadn't asked for her advice.

"Keith, this cage is _much_ too small! What were you _thinking_? He needs room to play in! And places to hide! And things to climb! Rodents are _very_ curious creatures, and they get bored easily - he's probably bored already, poor thing!   Have you been playing with him? Letting him out? They get lonely!"

Keith stepped in front of her before she could actually open Raticate's cage. "Don't! He's not a pet. He's wild."

"All the more reason to give him some space to move around in!" she answered stubbornly. "And _definitely_ hiding places."

She ducked past Keith and knelt down to look into the cage. Raticate made it clear that he was not happy about having another strange human close to him again.

"Look at him!" she said, "He's so stressed! It's ok, sweetheart. I'm going to help you."

She got up again with a fire in her eye that the rest of the building had long ago learned meant they should just get out of her way, and swept back out of his apartment. "I'll be back later!"

"I have to go to-" the door closed before Keith could get out the word "work."

"It's ok," Pidge said reassuringly, "I can let her in."

Keith sighed. "Ok, fine. Just don't let her actually release him. A new cage is fine, but I don't want him running around and biting people."

"You got it."

"I mean it, Pidge!"

"Message received." She sat down unceremoniously at the bar, "What's for breakfast?"

He checked his phone. "Nothing, now. I'm running late. If I don't get there soon, they'll give all the prearranged deliveries to other people."

He grabbed his backpack and headed out the door, leaving Pidge behind in the middle of telling him that Hunk said breakfast was the most important meal of the day. He'd finally broken down and given her his spare keys when he realized it took her under a minute to pick the lock on his balcony door, and he trusted her to lock everything behind her. He wasn't sure he trusted her _or_ Allura not to have let a wild rat out into his apartment before he got back, but he could cross that bridge when he came to it.

 

* * *

 

As he walked down the hall toward his apartment after school, he could tell that Allura was still working on whatever it was she was doing, and that she wasn't alone. Her uncle Coran, who had recently retired from the Navy, was always loud when he got excited about things. He got excited about things pretty easily, so he was pretty much _always_ loud.

They lived upstairs, across from Pidge, though Coran was always talking about moving into a unit of his own if one opened up, so that he wasn't in Allura's way all the time. She always said he _wasn't_ in her way, because after all, most of her work was running her blog and doing freelance writing, but they all knew she missed having a workroom for her nascent fashion design business and regretted having all her sewing projects laid out in the living room.

Now, Coran was cheering about something that "Came out great!" and "He'll love!" and Keith hurried his pace, bursting through the door to see just how far his friends had gone overboard this time.

Raticate was in what looked like an enormous cage for one rat, or at least, he assumed Raticate was in it, because the smaller cage he'd brought the rat home in was empty.

The cage had multiple levels, and was already liberally sprinkled with homemade toys, hammocks, and hiding places. Hunk and Allura were sitting at the bar, looking pleased, as Coran stood over the cage, trying to figure out where to put whatever it was he was holding, which might have been another hammock and was definitely some kind of repurposed sock.

"Oh, hey, man," Hunk said, "I hope you don't mind that I came over while you were gone. Allura and Coran needed help with the cage and all, and..."

"It's fine," Keith interrupted, smiling, "I know you love craft projects."

"Oh, I do. I definitely do."

"Hunk's been a great help!" Coran offered. "This wee beastie's still trying to fight us every time we put something new in there, but he's really taken to the new cage."

Keith went over to look. "Where is he?"

"He's in the corner," Allura answered. "Hiding in the box we gave him. I think he feels safer in there. But I'm sure he'll like the rest once he gets used to it."

Keith wasn't sure about that. Raticate was, after all, a wild animal. He also wasn't sure whether the rat getting used to hammocks and tunnels and things was going to be good in the long run, if he was just going to go free again once he was healthy. He nodded anyway.

"Thanks, guys," he said, "I think it's a little much when he'll just be here for the next couple of weeks, but at least he'll be happier."

"Oh, it was no trouble!" Coran explained, "The cage was already in our storage unit across town."

"And we can repurpose some of these toys for my mice once he's done with them!"

Keith felt a little bit better about it knowing his friends hadn't put themselves out too much. He wasn't sure what else to say, though, so he didn't.

Hunk picked up on his moment of awkwardness. "Oh, hey, we can get out of your hair if you've gotta do homework or whatever - I mean, I've probably gotta do homework myself, so-"

Keith nodded, "Yeah, that would probably be good. I, uh, I have another shift doing deliveries tomorrow, so I've gotta stay, you know, on top of things."

"Of course!" Allura said cheerfully, bouncing out of her seat at the bar and walking over to check on Raticate one last time. "I'll just come by and check on him again tomorrow. Pidge can let me in."

"Where _is_ Pidge?"

"She said she needed the audio equipment at the library for something," Hunk volunteered, "So probably getting into trouble."

"Don't worry, I'll check on _her_ later, too!" Allura said airily, kissing Keith on the cheek on her way out the door. She'd done it before, because she was like that, but it still made him blush.

Coran laughed at Keith, slapping him on the back on his way out the door, and Hunk followed it up with a squeeze to his shoulder, probably because everyone else was being touchy today too.

Once he'd closed the door behind them, he leaned against it for a moment. He loved his neighbors, but they could be a lot sometimes.

Raticate poked his head out of his little box in the corner, like he was checking to see if the quiet meant all the strange people were gone. Keith laughed. "Me too, buddy. But they mean well."

He wasn't sure how he felt about having Raticate there looking so established and pet-like, but he shoved those thoughts away, telling himself he was just worried it was going to be bad for Raticate's return to the wild, when it came to it. It _wasn't_ that he felt guilty about keeping a rat in what used to be Khafra's space. He was uncomfortable on _principle_ , and that principle was that wild animals needed to be able to live free. (The fact that Khafra had once been a barn cat was a third thing entirely.)

 

* * *

 

A week later, Raticate and Keith were both more-or-less settled in to living together. Raticate still wasn't happy about being trapped, and Keith still didn't feel like he could let the rat out, and _that_ still wasn't great for either of them, but at least Raticate's leg was almost healed. He was definitely moving around better, and seemed to be in less pain.

Keith had been a little extra emotional the first few days, feeling Khafra's absence almost as strongly as he had right after the cat had passed on, but that was settled now, too, and less painful than it had been at first. He'd stopped worrying that he might cry, which was a reassuring change.

Cleaning Raticate's new cage had been a stressful endeavor for both of them, but they'd made it through that, too, and Keith was starting to wonder if it might not be time to take Raticate back into the vet's office in another few days to see if he could let him go.

He laid back on his couch, letting the breeze from his balcony wash over him and carry away some of the smells of cleaning solution. He was supposed to be picking a day to take Raticate out, but he'd had a long day of deliveries before the whole fight over cleaning the cage, and once he was lying down, he fell asleep instead.

He woke up to the sound of Raticate screaming like he hadn't done since he was trapped in the storm drain. Keith leapt into action, moving toward the cage before he'd even woken up enough to process what was going on.

Pidge must have left her balcony door open, too, because Java was _halfway into the cage with Raticate. "_ Java, no!" he shouted. The cat ignored him. He wasn't sure how she'd managed to get the cage open, but she'd always been a smart cat, and a curious one, so he didn't waste his time worrying about it.

He tried to grab Java and pull her out of the cage, but she scratched him as soon as he touched her, and he cried out, as much in surprise as pain. Raticate was still screaming, but stopped long enough to bite Java as the cat scratched toward him. Java squalled, and Keith tried, again, to pull her out of the cage, succeeding this time in spite of another set of deep scratches. Keith cursed loudly as he realized blood was running down his arm.

Raticate, terrified and desperate, made a run for it out the door of the cage, vaulting down to the floor in spite of the fact that it was a little too far and squeaking loudly when he landed on his injured leg.

Suddenly, the door burst open, flying off its hinges, and Hunk and Lance rushed in with Blue on Lance's heels. "What's going on? Are you ok?"

Keith dropped Java in surprise, and the cat landed on her feet and took off toward Raticate, who was bolting for the now-open door. "Stop them!" Keith answered, pointing.

Hunk wasn't fast enough, but Lance was, scooping Raticate up only to drop him a second later, shaking his hand where Raticate had bitten him. Blue was barking now, and Keith wasn't sure what to expect. She hadn't liked Raticate outside the building, but they had carefully reintroduced them to each other a few days ago when Lance and Hunk came over to work on a project for their one shared class, and that had gone all right. Blue looked confused for a moment, and both rat and cat ran past her, down the hall.

Keith shoved past Lance, who was cradling his hand and cursing, and Hunk, who was trying to get Lance to show him the bite, and out into the hallway. Shiro opened his door only to step backward in shock as he saw the rat running down the hall. Atama leapt in front of him to protect him, growling fiercely enough to send the other animals to the other side of the hallway, away from her and Shiro. 

Keith chased Raticate and Java, but Blue was faster now that she'd made up her mind to involve herself in the situation.

The door to the stairwell started to open, but when Keith shouted, "Don't open the door!" it closed again, leaving a space just barely too small for Raticate to wiggle through. Keith tried to run faster, but Java was already there and trapping the rat. A moment later, Blue caught up and stood between them, barking at Java, which was the most unexpected thing yet. Keith shrugged out of his jacket and threw it over Raticate so that he'd be able to pick the rat up without getting bitten, but Java was single-minded and had leapt at Blue.

Keith didn't realize Lance had followed him until the other boy tried to grab Java and came away with some scratches of his own.

"What the hell is going on?" Pidge asked from the other side of the door.

"Your cat is attacking my dog!" Lance answered.

"Shit!" Pidge opened the door, but not until a second after Keith had managed to scoop his jacket back up, terrified rat safely inside it.

Once the rat was gone, Blue seemed to lose all sense of fight, retreating behind Lance and whining about her new scratches.

"I know, beautiful," Lance said affectionately, "We hate cats."

Blue did not, traditionally, hate cats. Or, at least, they'd usually been able to successfully get Blue to coexist with the building's cats, if they introduced them to each other carefully enough. She certainly didn't traditionally hate Java, who she'd been very fond of when the latter was still just a kitten.

Keith didn't say that, ignoring both Lance and Pidge, who was trying (only semi-successfully) to corral her still-hissing cat. Instead, he turned around and headed back to his own apartment, where he could get Raticate safely back into his cage and figure out whether the rat had been injured again.

Atama wasn't growling anymore, but the way she ran to Shiro's door when she heard him coming told him she wasn't about to let him in with Raticate, even if he'd wanted to. Shiro was sitting on the floor across from the door, leaning against the wall with his head in his hands, and Hunk was kneeling next to him, talking to him. _Shit_ , Keith thought. It didn't look like this had been a bad one, but they never liked it when Shiro was having trouble with his PTSD. At least this time, their other neighbors on this side of the stairwell were gone for the weekend.

20 minutes later, everyone but Java was in Keith's apartment for no apparent reason, with his first aid kit open and half-empty on the bar. Hunk was doing his best to negotiate a peace between Keith, Lance, and Pidge, talking calmly at them as he helped them clean up and wrap the bites and scratches they'd gotten from each other's animals. They were only half listening, at best, but his tone was soothing, and that probably counted for something.

Lance had cleaned and bandaged Blue's scratches before he'd done his own, but now that he was focused on himself, he wouldn't stop complaining. "-and I'm gonna have to get _rabies shots_ now which might not be a big deal for a _moron_ who keeps _catching wild animals_ , but I didn't _budget_ for rabies shots, and-"

"Java is _not_ a wild animal!" Pidge protested, rotating her arm to make sure the bandages over her own scratches were holding.

"She tried to _eat_ Keith's dumbass rat!"

"Blue tried to eat _her!"_

_"She did not!"_

"Guys!" Hunk said, louder this time, "Everyone is fine! And I'm sure between the four of us, we can scrape together enough for your rabies shots-"

"Five of us," Shiro said from the doorway, voice sounding a little weak. He looked pale and shaken, and Atama was leaning heavily against his leg so he'd know she was there, but his face looked serious, like he meant it. Keith blushed, wondering exactly how long he'd been standing there.

"Really?" Lance asked, "Even though we-"

"Yeah," Shiro said, cutting him off, "It was just an accident. It's not your fault."

"Right," Lance answered, "It's Keith's fault."

"Look," Keith said, "For the hundredth time, I couldn't just _leave_ him there to die, and-"

" _Fine_ , so it's Pidge's fault for letting that darned cat-"

"I had _no way_ to know Keith's balcony door was open!"

"GUYS." Hunk spoke up for Shiro, who was just looking at them with a vague desperation in his eyes like he was the most tired he'd ever been. They quieted down again.

"It's nobody's fault," Shiro said softly. "Sometimes these things just happen. We'll get everybody taken care of. I'm sure the vet gave the rat rabies shots before she sent him here, and I'm sure we'll be able to get yours covered. How's - Raticate?" He said the last part with visible discomfort, and Keith felt another wave of guilt wash over him.

"Not as bad as I'd been afraid of," he answered, staring somewhere between Atama and Shiro's feet, because he couldn't look the older man in the eye. "Blue really saved the day. I should be able to let him go in another week, still, I think. Across town, of course."

"Of course she did," Lance said proudly, almost toppling off his barstool as he bent down to pet Blue. She'd been lying quietly under his stool since he finished bandaging her up, but wagged her tail when she realized Lance was reaching for her.

"I'll keep a better eye on Java and the door until then," Pidge said sheepishly.

Shiro smiled at her. "It's ok. Pets can be tricky when you're not used to having them yet."

She smiled back, and Keith breathed deeply for the first time since he'd woken up. They were going to be ok.

"So, who wants to order a couple of pizzas?" Hunk asked, clearly trying to distract them.

Shiro laughed. "I'm in. I definitely don't feel like cooking tonight."

"Yeah!" Pidge seconded. She'd never turned down a pizza before, and Keith didn't really expect her to start turning them down any time soon.

"We should get anchovies," Lance said, fully aware that neither Keith nor Pidge would touch them.

Pidge made a face, but Keith was still focused on Shiro and didn't take the bait, for once. "Do you need another lemon?" he asked.

Shiro smiled, holding up the quarter of a lemon he was holding in his prosthetic hand. "I'm good." He'd taken a few bites out of it to try to bring himself back to reality, but he was doing better now.

"Ham and pineapple?" Hunk asked.

"You're both heathens," Pidge answered.

"Are you in for pizza, Keith?" Hunk asked. "You do pineapple on pizza, right?"

Keith shook his head. "Nah. I like jalapeños, though! But you can't usually get that here."

Pidge flung her hands up in the air, "I don't even know why I'm friends with you losers."

"Let's get two different kinds," Shiro said. "Then everybody wins."

"Anchovies and pineapple," Lance answered, apparently still feeling spiteful.

"That actually could be good," Hunk said, "Sweet with salty? Worth a try."

Pidge gagged melodramatically.

"Ours can be pepperoni and olives," Keith said reassuringly.

"I hate olives."

"You ate them last time!"

"I did not! I picked them off. We should get mushrooms."

Keith made a face in spite of himself.

"How about pepperoni and sausage?" Shiro suggested, cutting them both off.

Keith and Pidge looked each other in the eye for a moment, gauging how long they thought this fight was going to take if they fought it.

"Sounds good," Keith answered after a moment.

"Yeah," Pidge agreed.

They worked out the full details of the order and let Hunk call it in, then traded cash around for a while until everyone had come out about even. They agreed they should eat it at Lance and Hunk's, away from Raticate, and Lance left to tidy up, leaving Hunk behind for a moment.

"Hey, Keith," he said once Lance was gone, putting a hand on Keith's shoulder, "Don't feel too bad about all that. Lance is a lot like Blue. It may not be obvious when he's decided he's your friend, but he'll fight for you when it comes down to it."

Keith smiled at him, a little weakly. "Thanks, that helps." It almost did.

 

* * *

 

It took another week for Raticate to recover enough to go free, and Allura and Keith went alone to let him back out into the city, picking an alleyway they didn't think was particularly full of stray cats.

As Raticate vanished into the alley, to live a dangerous life where he might die at any time, even with his leg healed up, Keith had a hard time feeling like there'd been any point to all of this.

It must have shown on his face, because Allura put a hand on his shoulder and reassured him that doing the right thing was always worth it, in the end. He almost believed her. He also hoped she'd get the cage out of his apartment sooner, rather than later. He wasn't sure he wanted reminders of Raticate hanging around any more than he wanted the reminders of Khafra he couldn't quite escape.


	2. The Lab

A heavy pounding on the door pulled Keith abruptly away from his homework. He wasn't sure who it was, which was weird. Pidge would be unlocking the door herself, Lance would be shouting about whatever it was he wanted before Keith could even get there, and it wasn't Hunk's usual timid knock or Shiro's intentional rhythm. He wrinkled his forehead as he got up to answer it, hoping nothing was wrong.

As soon as he opened the door, Hunk shoved past him and charged over into the living room with a roll of paper under his arm, "Hey, you like animals, right? Silly question, of course you do, but did you know that one of the biology labs at the school is _experimenting_ on them?"

He started rolling out the papers on Keith's coffee table, "I mean, I guess it's not _that_ surprising, 'cause it's still not that uncommon in science, and you know me, I mean, I'm all for science, but I just think-"

Keith couldn't get a word in, so he looked down at what turned out to be floor plans and waited for Hunk to get to the point.

"I mean, it's one thing for _scientists_ to use animal testing when they know what they're doing, I don't _like_ it, but I _understand_ it.  But this is with _college students_. I mean, most of us can't even _drink_ yet and we're experimenting on animals? It's not a _lot_ of undergrads in the experiments, but I just think - I mean, you're in, right?"

"In for what?"

"Breaking them out!"

"The undergrads?"

"The lab animals!"

"Oh!" Keith answered, still trying to catch up. He hadn't seen Hunk this fired up in a long time. "Yeah! How many? What kinds?"

"I dunno. Definitely mice. I think a couple of rats. I saw a picture of a guinea pig who looks _super_ friendly. The _point_ is, we've gotta get them out. It's not right. They _need_ us!"

Keith nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, got it."

"Are you in?"

"Yeah!" he answered, committing himself before he'd really thought about it, "Yeah, of course."

Hunk smiled brightly at him, and Keith suddenly wondered if he was going to regret this decision later.  Either way, he'd already made his choice, and he wasn't about to go back on it.

"Great!" Hunk said, "Now we just have to figure out how we're gonna get in, how we're gonna avoid security, how we're gonna get out, and where we're gonna take them once we've got them." He sounded more nervous the farther he got into the list, but if Keith knew anything about Hunk it was that his nerves only stopped him from doing things _before_ he'd made his mind up about them. Once Hunk was in, he was _in_.

"In other words," he answered, "We're gonna need Pidge."

"Hey, yeah! Yeah, she can totally hack into the cameras or whatever it is she does. Ooh, and I bet Allura can find us a place to take the animals once we have them!"

"But if Allura knows, Coran'll find out."

"You think he'd try to stop us?"

"I dunno.  He might."

Hunk thought about it for a moment.  "I mean, he _probably_ wouldn't, right? He loves Allura's mice, and he's done all kinds of crazy stuff before. I bet he'd be cool about it."

Keith nodded. He could believe that. "So that's four of us trying to get in and out. Five max.  That doesn't seem that bad."

"Six, max. I mean, I haven't _asked_ Lance, because he's still in class, but he's _definitely_ gonna want in."

Keith nodded again. Hunk and Lance had apparently been best friends since the dorms and rarely did things separately, so that made sense. "We should ask Pidge and Allura while we wait for him to get back."

Hunk grinned at him, leaping forward surprisingly quickly and into an equally surprising hug. Keith patted Hunk's back awkwardly and waited for the other boy to let go, never sure what to do with himself in a hug. "Thanks, Keith. I knew I could count on you!"

 

* * *

 

Pidge was both immediately in, and immediately paranoid about it, so they moved their first planning meeting to the dog park at the opposite end of the neighborhood from campus.  Even if someone was listening in to their apartment complex _and_ had surveillance on campus, they wouldn't be overheard here. Hunk texted Lance to join them after class, and then all they had to do was wait.

Allura wrapped her arms around herself, turning her shoulders slightly against the wind whipping around their picnic table. She was wearing a hoodie over a long, flowing dress that billowed dramatically around her, but she couldn't put the hood up because one of her mice, Platt, was inside it, chittering happily at her. Chulatt was in the front pocket, periodically poking her head out to look around, while Plachu and Chuchule sat on Coran's shoulders, apparently less bothered by the cold.

Luckily, Blue was used to Allura's mice and didn't see them as prey anymore. She was the only dog here right now, early afternoon on a cold day, but it didn't seem to bother her. She was always happy at the dog park.

Pidge was less happy. She sat cross-legged on the table, looking down at the maps they'd pinned down with some large rocks, and grumbled about how this wasn't what she'd meant by "somewhere they wouldn't be overheard." Hunk and Lance worked here all the time, letting Blue run around and tire herself out, but Pidge wasn't much for being outdoors.

Keith felt silly thinking about it, but he was mostly just happy to be hanging out with people in public. It was nice having friends at his apartment, but somehow moving to the park felt more like he had _actual_ friends. Even Pidge's whining and Allura's shivering couldn't get him down as he leaned against the table, listening to Coran trying to convince Allura to take his jacket and Pidge and Hunk debating how much longer they thought Lance would be.

Blue announced Lance's presence before the rest of the group saw him, barking and running toward the entrance. When he realized Shiro was coming too, walking beside Lance with Atama between them, Keith pushed himself up away from the table and went to meet them, hurrying to catch up with Hunk.

"Hey guys," Shiro said, eyebrow raised, "I didn't know everybody was going to be here."

"Yeah!" Hunk said, "We are! I mean, there's a reason we are. We're-"

Keith wasn't sure if Hunk wanted Shiro in on the rescue or not, but since he was already here, he decided it was better not to dance around the subject or make excuses. "We're planning to break a bunch of animals out of the science lab at school."

"Wait, what?" Lance said, looking up suddenly from where he was scratching Blue's ears, "You're planning a breakout _without me_?"

"No!" Hunk protested, "Of course not! We've been waiting for you to get here."

Lance calmed down, though a sideways glance at Keith suggested that he wasn't exactly happy to be the last one to hear about it. "Got it!" he said, straightening up and letting Blue run off again. "In that case, we should probably get started."

Shiro didn't seem completely sure about how to react to that, and Keith felt bad for him. He'd been on the outside looking in enough times to know how much it hurt to be excluded by people who were supposed to be your friends. "We were gonna ask you, too, Shiro," he said, hoping Hunk wouldn't call him on the lie, "We just couldn't remember what shift you were working today."

Shiro smiled, but Keith looked away so he wouldn't have to meet his eyes. "Yeah," Shiro said, falling into step beside Keith as they returned to the picnic table, "That rotating shift can be confusing. Today was 6-3, so I'm home now. But Atama and I ran into Lance on his way past the building. Good luck, I guess!"

Keith nodded, trying not to give himself away as they rejoined their friends.

Luckily, as soon as they'd jumped into the plans, Shiro fell as comfortably into the group as always, and it turned out he was a  _great_ strategist.

 

* * *

 

It took them a month to get ready, because four of them had had to take a break in the middle of planning to get through their midterms. That was ok, because it gave Allura time to make them outfits.

Keith felt silly standing around Pidge's apartment with the others, dressed all in black. They looked great, of course, but it was still a little suspicious. Not that he could tell Allura that with her looking so pleased with herself, a beret perched dramatically on her head to really drive home the effect.

At least they'd be traveling where no one could see them. It was convenient that the other apartment on their hall had opened up this week, because Coran's U-Haul from the move this morning was going to be, they hoped, convenient for the rescue. Assuming that riding around in the back of it didn't kill anyone, of course. It at least seemed less likely to be tracked back to them than a truck from Shiro's warehouse, especially now that Allura had splattered mud artistically across the license plate, obscuring the numbers.

Pidge had already hacked into the school's security system without being detected, though she wasn't comfortable remote operating it from here in case there was some lag time on what she was seeing on the cameras. She'd been watching it for the last 45 minutes, waiting for one last professor to leave the building.

They hadn't expected _anyone_ to be in the building on a Sunday, but several of their professors had gone through while Pidge was watching, which actually made Keith feel almost better about the amount of homework he still had to do tonight. It wasn't _most_ of the professors, but even a few were enough to throw a wrench into their plans, and one staying this late was clearly starting to make them all nervous.

Finally, the professor's office door opened. "Guys, I think we're close," Pidge announced, cutting off the conversations they'd been having and drawing everyone in to cluster around her desktop.

The professor switched off the light and locked his office door and Keith turned to grin at Hunk, who had seemed nervous all day. Pidge switched between cameras as the man walked, following him from his office to the front doors, which he tugged at from the outside to make sure they had locked behind him. Then he walked past the inside camera's field of vision and Pidge turned to them all with a devilish grin. "I think we're a go."

Hunk had pulled himself together. He looked serious as he nodded back at her, and then the seven of them (or eight if you counted Atama) took off in a flurry, half of them taking the elevator and half the stairs in order to mask their numbers if any of their neighbors noticed anything.

Coran slid into the U-Haul’s front seat, while the rest of them piled into the back, strapping themselves to the walls with all the rented straps they hadn't actually needed for moving Coran's things out of the storage unit. It probably wasn't necessary, but it was better safe than sorry. Once everyone was settled, Shiro pounded on the wall behind Coran's head, his prosthetic arm making a particularly loud banging sound that told Coran they were good to go.

Coran seemed to be driving carefully, which was good, but Keith still felt nervous about it, especially when Hunk started going a little green in the face. Lance noticed that too, reaching over to pat the top of Hunk's arm. "It's ok, buddy. It's a short drive. Just keep breathing." Hunk nodded back, but didn't speak. Keith squeezed his eyes shut, hoping this wasn't as bad a sign as it felt like.

Atama made a few soft noises, but since they all knew she was good in cars, Keith suspected that meant Shiro wasn't really comfortable with this, either. Great. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.

A few minutes later, Pidge muttered, "We're on campus now. Sending short surveillance footage loops to the guys at the police department so they don't see us driving in. We'll still have to keep an eye out for campus police cars, but they're usually pretty irregular on Sunday nights." Keith opened his eyes to meet hers, but she was too focused on her tablet to look up at him. She'd built it herself, and none of them were really sure exactly how it worked. If she said the main campus police office couldn't see them, he believed her.

When the truck stopped, all of them let out loud breaths, like they'd been holding them in without anyone else noticing. Keith unstrapped himself, getting to the door first and pushing it open as soon as Coran had released it. He smiled weakly at Coran, hoping he wouldn't notice they all looked a little rattled now that this thing was real and not just a plan on a picnic table.

Coran patted him on the shoulder as he clambered down from the truck.

Once everyone was out, Pidge stepped up to the front of the truck and set up something on a laptop in the passenger seat. "You shouldn't have to help us out," she told Coran, "but on the off chance you do, let me walk you through the camera feeds you have access to, and keep an ear out for some directions from me if you have to use the other program that's running."

Keith tried to focus on the mission while she explained her new tech to Coran, but mostly found himself fidgeting.  He checked and rechecked that his earpiece was in his ear and tried to shake out the nerves while Hunk and Allura unloaded the cages they'd brought with them.  Lance stacked the first set of them neatly on the hand truck they'd rented with the U-Haul, and Keith pretended he was calm.

Shiro laid a hand on his shoulder. "We're ok, Keith. Just stay calm. Patience yields focus."

Shiro had told him that before, though he couldn't quite remember when. Keith repeated it back. "Patience yields focus." Shiro smiled, a quick bright thing that made Keith feel better again.  Waiting to do a scary or dangerous thing was always ten times worse than actually  _doing_ a scary or dangerous thing, but waiting with Shiro wasn't so bad.

"We're ready," Pidge announced, returning to the group. "The repeating camera loops for this parking lot have been going for a while and seem to be working smoothly, and I've got the rest ready to go with me."

They all nodded back, even Lance acting completely serious, for once. They walked at a normal pace, because Pidge had said ahead of time that that would be important for whatever she was doing to the cameras. Keith knew campus was well-lit at night, but somehow, in his head, it hadn't been _this_ well lit. The others seemed to feel exposed, too. Everyone was dead silent, even though they knew there weren't any microphones to pick them up or anyone in this part of campus to hear them.

The inside labs had been updated and remodeled, but the building's outer doors still had old-school keyed locks and deadbolts. Pidge, absorbed in whatever she was doing on her tablet, nodded to Shiro and he pulled a set of lock picks out of his pocket. His smile when he opened the door was softer than hers usually was when she picked somebody's locks, but it was just as confident.

Atama went through the door first, to make sure it was safe for Shiro, and then the rest of them followed, sighing audibly with relief once they were inside. Pidge came in last, closing the door behind her and checking one last thing before looking up from her tablet with a grin.

"We're invisible to the cameras, and we've got a clear path back to the truck as long as we stay on the sidewalks we came on. We've still gotta hurry in case someone goes on patrol or is out running at night and vanishes off the security footage in the looped areas. I can't plan for everything."

Hunk stepped forward. "The lab we want is in the basement," he said heading off toward the stairs confidently. He'd been hesitating, holding back, but now that they were close, Keith could see some of the fire Hunk had charged into his apartment with a month ago. He nodded, even though Hunk was well past him and wasn't looking.

When they got too far from the windows for the exterior lights to help them, they switched on their flashlights, still following Hunk.

At the bottom of the stairs, he turned right without hesitating and led them down the hallway, only to stop short at the door to the lab, which was protected by a card reader. Pidge plugged something into it, attaching the other end to her phone. After a few seconds of fiddling, the light turned green, and she waved them dramatically toward the door.

Hunk went in first, Lance following closely behind him and then holding the door for the rest of them. Keith hurried through next and almost walked into Hunk, who had stopped abruptly in the middle of the room to look around at the cages.

There were fewer animals than Keith had expected, which was probably a good thing, and most of them actually looked like they were being taken pretty good care of, as far as these things went. Their cages were too small for them to really be happy, though, and he couldn't be _sure_ what had happened or might happen to them.

Once everyone else was inside with them, Keith and Hunk moved in unison, stepping up to the first row of cages only to discover that they were permanently bolted down. That was ok. They had planned ahead for that.

"We need an accurate count," Hunk said, "And then we can go back for the rest of the pet carriers."

"It's definitely a good thing we borrowed extra," Allura commented, shining her flashlight around the room to take it all in.

They'd packed all of Allura's carriers from years of rodents, and Keith had, after a moment of feeling like his heart was being squeezed, offered up Khafra's old carrier and the one from the vet's office he'd never gotten around to returning after he freed Raticate. Then they'd borrowed every other carrier they could get their hands on. Keith didn't even _know_ where Pidge had gotten ahold of that many pet carriers, but he'd stopped asking her about things like that. He only hoped it would be enough.

Once they had a clear count, Allura took charge, explaining which animals could share carriers and which shouldn't. Then she started opening doors, alternately barking orders to her friends and cooing at the rodents as she pulled them out of their cages and handed them off or settled them into a carrier. Hunk took charge of stacking the full carriers on the hand truck, peering in at the animals to check how stressed they were.

The rest of them settled into individual tasks, falling into a system that seemed to work. Shiro was visibly uncomfortable in the lab, and he couldn't handle the rodents directly even after a year of living near Allura and her mice.  Pidge set him as a lookout outside the building and then posted herself on the exterior doors, keeping a constant eye on her tablet and opening and closing the doors as Keith and Lance came in and out. For a while, Lance carted the animals back to the truck and returned with empty cages, while Keith walked next to him and got ready to fight if he needed to, but then it became apparent that there wasn't going to be a fight.  Campus was deserted.

Keith left the transport to Lance, focusing on getting the cages loaded into the truck and strapped down securely, even though it meant more waiting.  Coran bounced between the front and back of the truck, keeping an eye on Pidge's laptop and double-checking Keith's work while he babbled about the route he'd found to take them back to the apartment complex on nothing but neighborhood roads. They wouldn't have to go over 5 miles per hour, he said, if they didn't want to.

Keith nodded, only half listening as he turned to check for Lance. The lampposts around the sidewalk meant he could see Lance coming pretty far in advance, which made it easier to be ready for his next batch of animals. Instead, he saw Shiro and Atama at the end of the sidewalk, turning around to finish their sweep of Pidge's camera radius.

Keith bit his lip, watching Shiro go, then interrupted Coran. "I think Shiro and Atama should ride back in the front with you."

Coran turned to look over at Shiro's retreating back. "Hmm. You might be right about that."

Coming up with an excuse to make Shiro into Coran's navigator for the ride home was a good distraction to break up the waiting.  Keith would almost rather somebody show up, just because fighting and running were both less stressful than waiting around for something bad to happen.

Time seemed to expand and contract, bending uncomfortably until Keith couldn't tell if they were making good time or not, if they were fast enough or going to get caught. He knew people _did_ get caught doing this kind of thing, but they'd been careful. And they weren't being dramatic about it, or making a statement. They weren't trying to light things on fire or spray paint anything, and they hadn't just let the animals loose. It was probably going to be fine. Right?

It was a relief to get confirmation over his earpiece that the others had the last of the animals and were headed their way, the lab door relocked behind them.

His friends broke into a sprint as soon as they hit the parking lot, like they'd started getting nervous too, and they loaded the last of the animals and piled into the truck as quickly as they could. Keith let Hunk grab his forearm before he climbed into the truck, reaching up to clasp Hunk's arm near his elbow in return before letting go, but the reassurance couldn't keep either of them calm for long once they'd started rolling.

Halfway home, jammed in the back of the truck between the cages and moving at a speedy 7 miles per hour now that they'd told Coran it was ok, Lance burst into sudden laughter, and the tension in the truck broke.

Keith turned toward him, raising an eyebrow.

"Dude," Lance gasped, " _We just did that_."

Hunk's face broke into a huge smile. "Heck yeah, we did!"

Keith felt his own mouth pull up at the corners, mirroring his friend's smile even as the reality of the situation stayed only half sunk-in.

Pidge turned her tablet screen toward them, grinning like a maniac. "And look! They're still none the wiser. I bet they don't even figure out the animals are gone until someone comes into the lab in the morning."

"And you're sure you covered our tracks well enough?" Keith asked.

"What do I look like, some kind of _amateur_? Of course I did."

Allura reached out a hand to grab Keith's, and he let her take it. She squeezed his hand reassuringly, and he squeezed back. Then she held her other hand out into the middle of the circle.  Lance grabbed it, and before Keith knew it they were all holding hands in a circle, rolling along down the street.

 

* * *

 

For the next month and a half, every apartment without a large animal was full to bursting with rodents and all their schedules were packed with trips to a long string of unconnected veterinarians and half-secret meetings with the people they knew who could give the animals a good home. Finally, the only animals left were the ones they couldn't bring themselves to part with.

Allura hadn't wanted to introduce more mice, but had kept a pair of rabbits they'd named Sparkles and Juniberry. Coran had three happy and lively rats in the large cage they'd used for Raticate, with all the same handmade toys. Both of them had adjusted quickly, and so had their animals.

Hunk and Pidge weren't so lucky. Rubber Ducky and Java were getting along now, but it had been a long process getting the cat and the hamster into the same space. Even so, every time Pidge waltzed in chattering about how Rubber Ducky had helped her find another problem in her code, they had more hope for Hunk's guinea pigs.

Samasama and Vae were living in Keith's living room, with occasional careful trips to Hunk's apartment to keep working on socializing them and Blue, and occasional trips here for Blue now that they were the only rodents left in the apartment. Samasama was a beautiful golden color all over, and Vae was splotchy, his back left leg a different color from the rest of him. Both were friendly, and Hunk had almost instantly fallen in love with both of them. 

Keith didn't want to admit it, but he had, too. He knew he should be working on his calc homework, but he kept watching the pigs instead, listening to their wide range of happy noises as they ran around, ducking in and out of the boxes he and Hunk had turned sideways for them to play in and jumping and twisting over each other and, occasionally, over Hunk and his homework, spread out on the floor with them. 

He didn't realize how long he'd been lost in thought until Hunk called him on it, rolling over from his stomach to his back to look up at the couch. "Are you gonna miss them when they're finally ready to come live next door? Or is the quiet something else?" 

Keith sighed, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling and leaning more heavily on the arm of the couch behind him. "I don't know," he said honestly, "I think so."

"You know you can come over any time, right? Like... we all usually turn up over here, but that's just 'cause that's what _happens_."

Keith couldn't help a faint smile. _Just what happens_. It sure felt that way to him, but he liked to imagine his friends were a little more purposeful about it.

"I mean, I know you're cool with living alone or whatever," Hunk continued, "And like, mad respect for that, right, but you shouldn't feel like you _can't_ come to us instead of us coming to you."

"No, I know," Keith said, cutting him off before he could wind himself up and get anxious. "It's just I don't like to feel like a bother.'"

It was also hard to think of walking into the chaos of Lance and Hunk's apartment. It was larger than his, two bedrooms instead of one, but the two of them and Blue filled it with more noise and motion than he thought three beings should be capable of. Not that he was about to tell Hunk that.

"And I _do_ go over to Shiro's sometimes," he continued. Shiro's apartment was quiet, and unlike Pidge he usually cleaned and didn't generally forget to restock his fridge and wouldn't fail to realize there wasn't anywhere to sit around the empty pizza boxes on the futon.  Shiro didn't even _have_ a futon.

"Yeah, see, like that." Hunk said, "You can just drop by if you wanna see them. Once they come home, I mean."

Samasama scurried up to Hunk, and Hunk picked him up and cradled him against his stomach, gently running his fingers through the guinea pig's fur.

"Yeah, I might do that," Keith agreed. He was mostly saying it to keep Hunk from worrying too much, but as he thought about it, it didn't seem impossible. Maybe he _would_ spend more time next door once the pigs were over there. Or maybe it would just make the space feel even more crowded and chaotic. Not that his own apartment didn't feel crowded and chaotic with all his friends over, but he always knew they'd leave, and it always felt good to think they cared enough about him to _be_ there.

"I don't know how you guys do it," Hunk said absently, "Living alone, I mean. I think I'd get lonely."

He almost answered, "Well, we _do_ have pets," but then he realized that he didn't.

Getting rid of his first rodent after Khafra's death had felt good. It had been good setting Raticate free to live the life he'd been born to, and it had been good not to feel like he was betraying his dead cat, and it had been a relief not to have to think about it all the time.

Now, he wasn't so sure. But Hunk was so excited every time they got a step closer to his pigs coming home, and it wasn't like he couldn't give them up when it meant so much to Hunk that he did.

He realized Hunk was probably still waiting for an answer, and said the first joke that came to mind. "Well, I'm not sure it counts as living alone when your neighbors come over four days out of five."

Hunk sat up, looking worried. "Oh no, is that a hint? Have I stayed too long? You know, you're allowed to tell me if I-"

"Hunk! Of course not. I'm just joking."

Hunk smirked, lying back down. "Huh. Keith, joking. You really _must_ be getting used to us."

It was enough, and Keith settled back into the homework he was supposed to be doing, but another series of happy squeaks from the pigs had his mind wandering again.

Rescuing the animals had been good. Having them around had been good. It had _felt_ good. And somewhere in the weeks they'd been here, he'd realized he couldn't have done it if Khafra was still around. They'd have had to jam all the rodents into Allura and Coran's apartments, and he wasn't sure where they'd have put them all, and he'd never have gotten to watch them go off, in ones and twos and threes, to new homes. It would have been a lot less trouble, but he wasn't sure he regretted the trouble. He was pretty sure he didn't.

He was also pretty sure he didn't _really_ want to go back to living alone anymore, joke or no joke. Escaping other people was good, but he wasn't sure he needed to be really alone.


	3. Red

Keith knew something was wrong when Pidge called him on the actual, honest-to-goodness telephone. He answered immediately, heart leaping into his throat.  "Pidge?"

"Hey, Keith, sorry to bother you, but-"

"What's wrong?" he interrupted, too worried to wait.

"Are you at home?"

He huffed impatiently, "Yeah. _What's going on_?"

"There's this strange cat on my balcony, and he's freaking Java out."

Keith laughed with relief. He'd thought Pidge was dying or something. "Is that it?  Jeez, Pidge, you scared me! How'd he get up there?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said, "But I can't get Java to calm down, and all the hissing is freaking Ducky out and I thought maybe you could help from your balcony so I don't have to open the door."

Keith nodded, then remembered Pidge couldn't see him. "On it," he said, walking to the door and stepping out onto the balcony before realizing he had no idea what to do next. "Does he look like he's _stuck_ up there, or is he just kind of _there_?"

Pidge made a soft sound like she was thinking. "I'm not sure. I mean, it's the fifth floor, so he _could_ be stuck, but he doesn't look freaked out or anything. But he's also not moving around much or playing with the cup phone or anything. So maybe he _is_ a little freaked."

Keith leaned out over the railing of his balcony, craning his neck to look up toward Pidge's, but he couldn't get a good enough angle to see anything but its underside. He bit his lip.

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"I dunno, yell or something?"

Keith wasn't sure what that was going to accomplish, but he gave it his best shot anyway, roaring at the top of his lungs.

Pidge laughed. "Maybe put the phone down first next time, Keith."

"Sorry," he answered. "Did it work?"

"No. He looked sideways, but he didn't seem startled or anything."

Keith wrinkled his nose. "Well, maybe I can bang on the underside with a broom or something. Like you're having a party and I'm a grumpy old guy downstairs."

"Worth a try."

While he was inside grabbing the handle of his Swiffer, Keith picked up the bluetooth headset he used to answer the phone while he was working and slipped it on over his ear, sliding his phone into his pocket to free his hand up.

After a few hard thumps to the bottom of Pidge's balcony, he asked, "Anything?"

"Oh, did you do it? No. He's still there, and Java's even more freaked out now."

It was true. He could hear Java yowling over the phone, and it sounded like the other cat wasn't even trying to move. He wished he knew whether it was actually stuck or not. If it was just hanging out there, he could go upstairs and try to help Pidge get Java into another room where she couldn't see the other cat. If it was stuck, he needed to help it. He thumped on the bottom of Pidge's balcony again, but when she was quiet on her end of the line, he assumed it hadn't done anything.

He bit his lip, running a hand through his hair as he thought. "What's he doing now?"

"He was pacing around for a while, but now he's just sitting in the middle of the balcony like he doesn't want to move."

"Does he look relaxed? Tense?"

"I mean, I guess somewhere in the middle?"

Keith sighed. He couldn't be sure the animal didn't need help, and he couldn't stand the thought of leaving it there if it needed help, and he was sure that it would be able to hear Java through the window, by now, so the fact that it wasn't moving was a little disconcerting.

"Ok, Pidge," he said. "I'm gonna climb up."

"Like heck you are! We're too high up!"

" _You've_ done it!"

"I was climbing _down_! And it was an emergency! At least, like, get a rope or something."

Right. A rope. Because he just _had_ that lying around. Except - "I think I still have some of those extra bungee cords we bought for-" he cut himself off, knowing it would freak Pidge out if he referenced their break-in at the lab over the phone - "for when we were moving Coran's stuff."

"Those are really short, though."

"I'll hook a few of them together."

"Keith -"

"It's fine!" he insisted, not sure whether he was trying to convince Pidge or himself. "They're just backup anyway."

"Well, be careful."

"Always," he answered with a grin.

The bungee cords didn't hook together as securely as he'd hoped, so he duct taped the hooks together to make sure they didn't fall apart, secretly hoping the cat would leave while he was doing it. But no. By the time he was ready, it still hadn't moved and Pidge was making little nervous clicking noises with her tongue that he could hear over his earpiece.

"I'm coming up," he said, trying to keep the nerves out of his voice.

"Wait, let me pull up Skype on my laptop. You can totally Skype 911, right?* If you need an ambulance?"

"I'm not gonna need an ambulance."

"You better not!"

Keith hooked one end of his bungee cords to his belt and the other to the railing of his balcony, trying not to look down as he hopped up to crouch on the railing. The air was still today, without any wind to unbalance him, but it felt dangerous up here either way. Luckily, his balance had always been good.

He gradually straightened up until he was standing, still feeling stable, and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Keith?"

"I'm alright. I'm gonna try to reach up for the edge of your balcony now. If I can get a grip on the concrete, I can maybe pull myself up enough to get a hand on the bars, and then I'll be pretty solid until I can climb over."

Pidge made a small, skeptical sound. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he said, trying to keep his voice casual, "Why wouldn't I be?"

He reached up slowly, trying to focus inward and keep his balance. His fingers felt for the edge of Pidge's balcony, searching for a solid grip. Then he had it. He took another deep breath and then pulled himself up, a moment of terror washing through him when his feet left the railing below him. 

The rest of the way up was even harder and more frightening, his heart pounding so loudly in his ears as he climbed that he almost couldn't hear Pidge telling him to be careful.

He had his feet on the concrete ledge and his hands on the top of the balcony railing before the slender orange cat, who had rolled over onto its back to look at him when it heard him coming, sprang casually to its feet. Keith froze, watching it. They held eye contact for a moment, and then the cat hopped up effortlessly onto Pidge's windowsill, took another leap up to balance on the thin sill over her balcony door, took two quick hops with slightly-extended bricks for its footholds, and scrambled its way up onto the roof and out of sight.

Keith watched it go, flabbergasted, and stayed frozen where he was until Pidge burst out onto her balcony, Java following at her heels, and grabbed ahold of the front of his jacket. "Get over here! It's not safe!"

"Right!" he answered, clambering over the railing toward her and letting her keep her fingers locked into their grip on his jacket, even though it meant she was standing a little too close to him so that she could reach. Java stepped cautiously around the balcony, picking her feet up like she was vaguely disgusted by the space now that the stranger had been in it. Then she reached the spot where the other cat had been sitting, sniffed it, rolled in it to reclaim it as hers, and calmed down.

Keith suddenly burst out laughing, so hard he almost couldn't breathe, and Pidge had to steady him.

"Whoa. You ok, there, buddy?"

He grinned. "Yeah. Sorry. It's just, I should have known. Cats-” He waved his hand, like that explained it, but Pidge's grin told him she understood.

"I think you're slaphappy from adrenaline. You'd better come in and sit down."

He tried to calm down and quit laughing, but he couldn't, so he just followed her inside and let her shove empty Chinese food cartons off the futon and onto the floor so he'd have a place to sit.

 

* * *

 

The next time he saw the cat, he, Lance, and Hunk were walking past the park, halfway to the fancy taco truck that had started parking in front of the neighborhood bar Keith kept forgetting he could actually drink at now. Blue was the one who noticed it first, making a little snuffling noise as she looked up at the tree it was sitting in.

"Hey," he said absently, "I think that's the cat that was freaking Java out on Pidge's balcony the other day."

"I still can't believe you _climbed up the outside of the building_!" Hunk said.

Lance was more focused on the cat, stopping short and pulling Blue to a halt before they could get closer to the tree. "Do you think it's stuck?"

"I don't know," Keith answered, "It seemed pretty unafraid of heights before, but cats really _do_ have a harder time getting down than up."

"Should we do something about it?" Hunk asked.

The cat was sitting casually on a branch, looking unconcerned as it gazed down at Keith. He could feel another staredown coming, and he remembered full well how the first one had ended. "Maybe if it's still there after we eat," he answered, "It's probably fine, though."

When they walked back the other direction, the cat was in the same spot, but sitting up a little taller on its paws.

"It looks tenser this time," Hunk said, "Do you think it's tenser?"

"It's probably just messing with us," Lance said, "Right? I mean, cats _definitely_ just mess with people.  I _hope_ it's just messing with us."

Keith wasn't sure. He stopped to look at the cat again, and it looked back. When it let out a meow he couldn't interpret, he took it as a sign and started shrugging out of his jacket, even though he was instantly cold without it.   "I'm gonna climb up and get it," he said. "Better safe than sorry, right? Keep Blue back so she doesn't freak him out."

"Him?" Hunk asked.

"Most orange cats are male. Not all of them, but it's, like, 3/4 of them or something. Or a little more. I can't remember."

"Huh."

"Yeah," Keith said, throwing his jacket over his shoulder so he could use it to protect himself from the cat's claws if he needed to. "I don't _know_ this one's a boy, but it's a safer guess. As far as guessing goes."

The cat watched him climb up toward it, staying stock still until he was almost in arms' reach. Then it darted down the tree on its own, staying just out of his reach, and ran off farther into the park.  Hunk and Lance watched, startled and too slow to do anything about it. Keith stayed where he was until Lance burst out laughing so hard he almost fell over and Blue nuzzled up against his side to steady him, worried about her boy.

Keith let Hunk help him as he climbed back down, feeling silly. "It wasn't stuck," he announced, trying to sound like he wasn't embarrassed by it.

Lance just laughed harder, but Hunk patted him on the shoulder. "It's ok, buddy. At least you tried. It would have been way worse if it was actually stuck and nobody had done anything about it."

 

* * *

 

The third time the cat showed up, it was sitting on his own balcony, relaxing in the sun as it cleaned itself. He knew better than to make any sudden moves toward it or to open the balcony door, but now that it was sitting in his line of sight and he had some time to look at it, he could take stock of things.

It had no collar, and it seemed comfortable enough in the city, but he wasn't sure what that meant. From what he could tell, it hadn't seemed aggressive toward Java, but it also hadn't seemed bothered by the other cat's ire. It kept running away, but it hadn't tried to fight him.

He decided it was probably a stray, instead of a feral cat. Maybe someone was looking for it. He made a mental note to keep an eye out for posters and drifted casually toward the door in little bits at a time.  Finally, he made it to the door and sat down on the floor, leaning against the glass to do his homework with the cat in his peripheral vision.

It was kind of nice.

 

* * *

 

 

For the next two weeks, the cat seemed to be everywhere but his balcony. He half-saw it skirting around corners while he was on his bike, caught glimpses of it on campus a few times from his seat near the window in calculus, managed several good looks at it as it hovered around the food truck and refused to allow anyone to feed it, and pretended to ignore it in the yard of the house under construction that he always passed on the way to campus.

 

* * *

 

The next time it made an appearance on his balcony, the cat was balanced on the railing and he worked up the guts to open his door for it. It leapt, impossibly, up to Pidge's balcony, and he couldn't help wondering if he'd imagined the whole thing. If the others hadn't seen the cat, too, he'd almost have believed it was a figment of his imagination the whole time. But they _had_ seen it. So he wasn't going crazy. Right?

 

* * *

 

Keith walked down the aisles, pushing the grocery cart in front of him while Shiro kept a grip on Atama's harness and double-checked his list. It was always nice going grocery shopping with Shiro. It felt calming, and it meant he had the back of Shiro's SUV to put things in, and not just his bike basket or his backpack.

A woman walking by glared at Atama, like she couldn't see her service dog vest or just didn't care, and Keith glared back, hoping Shiro hadn't noticed. Atama certainly hadn't. Her ears perked up a little as she smelled the pet food aisle coming up, but she was on the job, focused on Shiro and the people around them, and she didn't pull toward it.

Keith veered for her, turning the cart almost before he realized what he was doing. Shiro followed him down to the cat food. "Oh, do we have Pidge's list, too?" he asked.

Keith shook his head. "No, I just - there's something I need to try."

The best thing about Shiro was that he didn't ask any questions.  He just said, "Alright. Let me know if you need help."

"Nah," he said back, "If it works, it'll work on its own."

He needed dry food, so it wouldn't dry out or spoil if he just left it out on the balcony long-term, but he needed something tantalizing enough to lure the stray to it for long enough to gain its trust. After a moment, he picked one that was _slightly_ more expensive than what he would have bought for Khafra and started back toward the food aisles a little faster than he probably should.

Shiro kept up effortlessly, raising an eyebrow at Keith when he finally made eye contact, but letting it go when Keith didn't answer.

 

* * *

 

After the third time he came home to an empty food bowl on the balcony, Keith refilled it and left the door to his apartment open a little bit. The cat stared at him through the gap when it came to eat, but didn't come inside. Keith figured that still counted as progress.

After 6 days, he moved the bowl slightly closer to the door. The cat poked its head in to look at him, but didn't come through.  He let it, staying put on the couch until it left.

When he moved the food bowl inside, the cat ignored it, even though he knew full well it understood what an open door was. All he got was a pigeon inside his apartment for his trouble, when he opened the door extra wide to encourage the cat. He thought Red might have been pleased by that, if she had known. Then he thought he was probably being mean. Most cats were stubborn. This one didn't mean anything by it. Probably.

He went back to an outside bowl and a slightly open door, and tried not to worry about the fact that the bag of cat food was starting to run low. Maybe he should have bought more.

 

* * *

 

He didn't realize he'd fallen asleep on the couch until Pidge's voice woke him up.

"Ok, well the library didn't have _Alien_ 'cause somebody else checked it out, but I found this movie about - you have _got_ to be kidding me."

Keith opened his eyes, only to find the cat looking back from where it sat huddled in the middle of his chest. "Pidge, be quiet," he whispered, "Red's here."

"Yeah, I can see that! You know Java hates him, right?"

"Shut up, he's never come inside before. I don't want to scare him."

Pidge stopped moving, the rustling sounds she'd been making fading into silence behind him. "Wait, really?"

"Yeah. Move really slowly. Can you close the door?"

"Oh. Right." Pidge moved again, but he didn't see her coming forward into his peripheral vision, like he'd expected. She closed the apartment door instead, and he had to force himself not to react so that he didn't startle the cat on his chest.

"Hey, Red," he whispered, "I'm Keith. You probably remember me from that time I climbed Pidge's balcony, too. Or the tree. Anyway, it's _me_. _Keith_."

The cat responded to his voice, squeezing its eyes shut, but didn't seem inclined to move.

Pidge was still moving quietly behind him, and he didn't realize how close she'd gotten until she spoke again, voice hushed. "What are you gonna do?"

He forced himself not to shrug. "I dunno."

"Should I close the balcony door, too?"

"Yeah, probably."

"Do you even have a litter box?"

"Yeah, it's still in the closet. Can I borrow some litter?"

"Java and I are almost out. But yeah, of course!"

"Then definitely close the balcony door."

Red tensed as Pidge walked by and Keith tried to soothe the cat, making soft shushing noises he hoped would help.

Red vaulted off his chest just before Pidge was in arms' reach of the door and darted back outside, streaking past her so fast that Pidge instinctively pulled one foot up and out of the way.

Keith sighed, leaning his head back against the arm of the couch and rubbing at the spots on his chest where the cat's claws had dug into him through his shirt during the jump. Well, it had been nice while it lasted. "Never mind, Pidge," he said, "What movie did you find?"

They both watched the door more than they watched the zombie movie Pidge had picked up, but Red didn't reappear.

 

* * *

 

Red napped on Keith's ancient television and sprawled across the sunny spots on his carpet and let him close enough that he could figure out she was a girl, but she shied away from petting, and she bolted out the door any time he looked like he might close it.

 

* * *

 

"This cat seems like an even bigger pain than Khafra, in some ways," Hunk commented as they walked home past the park, "I mean not in a bad way necessarily. At least she's got personality. I mean, Khafra had personality, but-"

"I know what you mean," Keith said, cutting him off. Khafra's personality had been ornery through and through, with a side of meanness and a little hissing thrown in for spite. Red was stubborn and difficult and a pain in the ass and Keith  _always_ had dirt and old leaves and things in his apartment now that he was leaving the balcony door open so much, but there was something playful about her that made him keep trying.

"I just feel like she's _mine_ , you know?" he said, "Like we're meant to be together. Is that dumb?"

"Nah," Hunk said, "That's how I felt about my pigs, you know? We had all those animals at once, and I liked all of them, obviously, but Sama and Vae were special."

Keith nodded.

"Anyway, I'm glad you're ready to have another pet again. I know it was rough losing Khafra."

Keith snorted. "I just wish Red was ready to have _me_. I feel like I already _have_ a cat, she just hasn't figured it out yet. And my electric bill's been stupidly high 'cause the heater has to work so hard with the door open." Thinking about Khafra still stung, but it was a dull sting, one he could accept and move on with. Thinking about how much it was going to cost to get all of Red's shots and to get her spayed if she needed it, on top of his skyrocketing power bills, was a little less comfortable.

"I'm sure she'll come around. You're really patient. I'd never noticed that about you before, 'cause you fly off the handle sometimes, but you are."

Keith blushed. "Thanks, Hunk."

Hunk shrugged. "'S true."

They didn't see the man with the gun until he stepped out of the shadows under the trees.  "Hands up!"

Keith was startled, freezing until the man waved the gun again and he got his head on enough to raise his hands in the air.

Red was less startled, launching herself from the tree Keith had climbed all those weeks ago and landing on the man in a fury of hissing teeth and slashing claws and orange fur. The mugger squeezed the trigger, but not until he'd flung his arms up to grab at Red. Keith couldn't tell where he'd shot, but he could tell he and Hunk hadn't been hit.

Hunk was frozen in terror, but Red had given Keith time to react. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911, speaking loudly into it so that the mugger could hear. The man cursed, turning tail and running into the park. Keith saw Red jump off of the man, but he couldn't tell where the cat went from there.

"He's running into the park!" he shouted at the dispatcher. "He's gonna get away!"

"Sir, stay where you are. The police are on their way right now." Keith's whole body itched to run after the man, but he forced himself to follow directions and stay put.

"My cat scratched him. Tell them they're looking for a man with cat scratches. Oh no, where is she? He's gonna get away!"

"Sir, we need you to stay put so the officers can see where you are when they get there."

"Hunk's here," he said, "That's my friend. He's ok."

"Stay with your friend."

"I don't know where my cat is."

Hunk seemed to have come to his senses at the sound of his name, moving for the first time since the mugger had jumped out at them. He put a hand on Keith's shoulder. "It's ok, man. We'll find her as soon as the police get here. She can't have gone far. She _saved_ us, man."

"Yeah, but what if she's _hurt_!"

"Sir?" the dispatcher asked, "Who's hurt?"

"Nobody. My cat. I don't know. How far away are they? He's gonna get away! He's probably practically at the other end of the park by now!"

Keith heard sirens coming toward them, but he couldn't see the cars yet.

"They're almost there, sir, don't worry. Can you still see your attacker?"

He shook his head and then remembered she couldn't see that. "No. He's gone."

"The police will do their best to find him. And they'll give you a ride home."

Keith still wanted to run. They weren't _fast_ enough. This wasn't _good_ enough. But Hunk looked green and was still holding onto his shoulder and he couldn't run. He couldn't. He wasn't supposed to.  "They're almost there, Sir, just sit tight."

By the time the police arrived, Hunk was shaky and pale and able to answer questions calmly, while Keith was angry and grumpy and felt prickly all over thinking about how the man had gotten away. He let Hunk answer the policemen's questions, and then followed behind them when they went into the park, even though they'd told him and Hunk to stay back.

"Whoa, man, what are you doing? It's not safe!"

"Red's _in there_ ," he answered, pulling his way out of Hunk's grip and charging down the nearest path.

"But they said to-"

Keith fixed Hunk with a glare he suspected he'd feel bad about later.  "I have to find her. Anyway, they're ahead of us!"

Hunk sighed. "Ok. But we're only going in for like 15 yards. After that, we'll just have to - I dunno, leave her some salmon or something. Something she couldn't turn down."

Keith felt all tangled up, a mess of fear and anger and that particular rage that always came behind helplessness. He grunted, because he couldn't make the words come out right to agree, and charged into the park. "Red! Red!"

Hunk was slower behind him, and his voice was nervous, shaking a little as he started calling out, too. "Here, kitty, kitty. Here, kitty."

"Red!" Keith thought he should probably shout more quietly. Or more loudly. He'd already lost a cat this year. He needed to find her. He needed not to get in trouble with the police. There were more sirens behind him - the backup the policeman from before had said was coming - and his heart raced a little faster. He had to find Red before they caught up. "Red!"

The cat was so quiet, strolling out of the bushes toward him, that he almost didn't notice her until she bumped into his legs. He stopped dead, letting her rub up against him and twine herself around his legs.

"Ok, great, you found her," Hunk said, "Now let's go back to where we're supposed to be and talk to the cops like we're supposed to, so we can go home, like we're _supposed_ to."

He was coming on a little strong, but he was also afraid, more afraid than Keith had fully realized, wrapped up in himself and his own worries.

"Shit, Hunk, I'm sorry," he said, "I'm sorry, I just -" Something. He couldn't put words around any of it, so he didn't. He waved his hand ineffectually at Hunk and knelt down to pet the cat, keeping his face turned toward Red so he wouldn't have to meet Hunk's eyes. "I'm sorry," he finished, looking up only after the words were out.

Hunk nodded, looking green again, and Keith took a deep breath. He needed to hurry. "Ok, sweetheart," he said to the cat, "I'm gonna pick you up. Please let me pick you up."

She did. He scooped the cat into his arms and they went back out to the street to meet the cops, Keith's heart swelling with some kind of happiness that just made his whole tangle of feelings much more confusing.

 

* * *

 

They went back to the station in a cop car so that the forensics lab could get as much blood off of Red as possible. They hoped the DNA would help them identify the mugger, and they needed statements from Hunk and Keith anyway. Keith could hold onto those facts, but the longer they were in the car, the more everything else got confusing. Hunk called Lance on the way, but Keith couldn't follow what he was saying. It all felt surreal, like a blur of places and names and streets and people as they rode along, got to the station, and went inside to give their statements.

He didn't get a grip on things again until their friends showed up, half panicked.

Lance came in the fastest, barrelling into Hunk at a run and hugging him so hard he almost knocked him over. Hunk didn't seem to mind, squeezing him back just as tightly. Shiro and Pidge were behind Lance, moving almost as quickly. Pidge was rambling about how she'd never seen Shiro drive so fast, but Shiro was deathly, desperately silent.

As soon as he could reach Keith, he cradled his face in his hands, looking intentely into his face. All of a sudden, Keith felt like Shiro was the realest, most solid thing in the world, even with the prosthetic hand. He reached up and grabbed Shiro's wrists, anchoring himself in Shiro's reality. "I'm ok," he said. Shiro tightened his grip just a little and then let go of Keith's face and checked him over for injuries, heaving a sigh of relief that came from somewhere deep as soon as he realized Keith was really, genuinely ok.

"Ok," he answered. Then his mouth quirked belatedly upward, like he'd remembered he was supposed to smile, and he added, "I'm glad."

A moment later, Lance finally let go of Hunk, and Shiro stepped sideways to check him, too, eyebrows settling back into a worried frown as he examined him for injuries. Pidge was talking to the officer who had been taking their statements, asking a thousand demanding questions, but before Keith could really focus on either of their other friends, Lance was hugging him so hard he almost couldn't breathe.

"Dude, I was so worried! I'm so glad you're ok! I mean, you're ok, right? Hunk said you were ok, but you _gotta_ be ok, ok?"

Keith almost laughed. "Yeah," he said, patting Lance on the back, "Yeah, I think I'm alright."

Lance let go and slugged him in the shoulder hard enough to hurt. "Then what were you running back into the park for, loco? Some stupid cat? What the hell? You can't scare us like that!"

"You weren't even there to _be_ scared!"

This time, Lance hit him in the upper arm, and not quite so hard, but whatever he was about to say got lost in Allura and Coran's arrival.

The officer started trying to get the others out of the way until they could finish their statements, and everything started to get blurry again. Pidge ran out of questions, or the officer ran out of patience for them, or maybe both, and then Keith was getting a fierce, hard hug from Pidge. Luckily, Pidge's hug didn't involve quite so much punching.

Coran ruffled his hair, and Allura kept touching his shoulders, when she wasn't hovering over Hunk, and the officer was getting more and more impatient with them. It was all Keith could do to keep focused on what he was supposed to be doing, which was giving a statement he thought might be getting more and more useless and incoherent by the second.

At some point, he realized Allura wouldn't stop touching him because he was shaking and she could see it. Pidge dragged a chair over next to his and wrapped her arm through his, leaning into his side, and he thought maybe that was because he was shaking, too. It didn't help, but at least it felt good to have her to lean into.  At least it felt good to know his friends were there.

He was still shaking when he refused to leave without his cat. The others resolutely stayed there with him until Red had clearance to go, and he hoped their determined faces would make up for his own trembling as the police tried to talk them into coming back later.

He was still shaking when he climbed into the SUV, Red cradled in his arms, even though the cat was purring up a storm against him.

He shook while they pulled over so Hunk could throw up, halfway back to their apartment and two minutes after the car had finally settled into the first quiet moment since the park. He shook while Shiro found a parking spot and parked the car. He shook while Red yowled at the elevator and didn't quite scratch at him.

He shook until Shiro ushered them all into his apartment instead of sending them off to their own and lit some kind of nice-smelling candle and made them some kind of weird tea he'd never heard of, and until he let his friends pile into his personal space again. It took a while of all being settled in together, but the shaking finally stopped, and he could finally start believing things were ok.

 

* * *

 

Keith woke up in a pile of limbs, pinned down by Hunk's arm and with Pidge lying halfway on top of him. He looked around the room only to find Red staring down at him from the top of Shiro's dresser. The cat made eye contact with him and he prepared himself for a staredown, but when the cat finally broke it, it wasn't to run away. Instead, she jumped down into the pile on the bed, picking her way over Lance's lanky limbs, hopping over Hunk, and curling up in the one remaining clear patch of his chest, up near his shoulder.   She purred so hard he was surprised the others couldn't feel it.

Shiro was leaning casually against the doorway. "Sorry, Keith," he said softly, "I didn't mean to wake you up."

Keith's memories of last night were a little foggy. There had been something about 'I have a king sized bed' and 'you'll be alright' and 'don't worry, you can all stay here for now.' He didn't remember how he'd reacted, at the time, but he was glad he was still here this morning.

"I can't get up," he whispered to Shiro.

"Looks that way." The older man's voice was soft and amused and it wasn't _fair_.

Keith put his head back down on the pillow. "I'm trapped."

"I'll start making breakfast. They'll all want to get up for that."

"What day is it?"

"It's Sunday. You're ok. You guys can stay all day if you need to."

"Where's Atama?"

"Sitting between Allura's couch and Coran's chair. She's alright."

"Where did _you_ sleep?"

"I'm gonna go start breakfast."

Keith huffed, and Pidge shifted a little in her sleep, snuggling closer. Keith carefully pulled his arm out from under Hunk's and reached up to pet Red. He'd thought of a lot of ways to get the cat to trust him, but this hadn't been one of them.

 

* * *

 

Keith and Red didn't make it across the hall to their own apartment until almost 10 pm, too caught up in a string of spontaneous plans, made on the fly by friends who clearly didn't want to let him or Hunk out of their sight. He couldn't bring himself to mind.

It was still a relief to stumble into his own apartment and close the door behind him and embrace the quietness of it.

Red immediately started exploring, but she didn't head for the sliding glass door. She didn't seem interested in the living room at all. He trailed after her, realizing Pidge must have snuck over while he wasn't looking, because Red had food and water bowls in the kitchen. She ate contentedly, taking just fine to the dry food Pidge usually bought for Java, and a tension Keith hadn't realized he was carrying relaxed.

She explored his bedroom as he trailed behind her, letting her poke her head into all the nooks and crannies and crawl under the bed and climb his bookshelf. She found her litter box in the bathroom and used it, which was a relief, because it meant he wouldn't have to teach her how, and that she'd been a house cat before and might not need so many shots.

She walked up to him and rubbed against his legs, and when he picked her up, she didn't wiggle away.

So things were ok, then.

It almost felt weird. Keith put Red down on the bed so he could change into his pajamas and she immediately sat on his pajama bottoms and he couldn't even imagine minding, right at the moment. He just laughed and crawled into bed in his boxers, and _things were ok_.

Red wandered the apartment, occasionally waking him up as she raced around the new space and knocked over things Pidge hadn't moved, but she didn't cry to be let out, and when he woke up with her curled up against his stomach, something felt right that hadn't felt right for a long time.  He smiled and closed his eyes to sleep until his alarm went off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *YOU CANNOT SKYPE 911. DO NOT TRY TO SKYPE 911. USE A REAL PHONE. Pidge is just being Pidge here.


	4. Epilogue

Keith heard his friends coming down the hall before they got there.

"Look, I know it's your turn to pick again for movie night," Pidge said, "But do we _have_ to watch another dog movie?"

Lance snorted, offended. " _Bolt_ is not just 'another dog movie.' It's a _hero_ dog movie!"

"Well, I still think we could be watching a hero _cat_ movie," Pidge answered, unlocking Keith's door.

"Who ever heard of a hero _cat_?"

" _Red_ 's a hero cat," Hunk supplied, bending down to scoop her up into his arms.

"Well, Atama's a hero _dog_. So we still know one of each," Lance retorted.

"Did I just hear our names?" Shiro asked jovially, standing in the doorway with Atama.

"The movie does _have_ a cat in it," Hunk told Pidge, "And a hamster."

"I didn't say I wouldn't _watch_ it, just that it's starting to feel a little _pointed_ that we're watching dog movies."

"At least the dog's not gonna die this time," Keith answered, getting up off the couch to join them. "Right? I mean, it's a kids' movie, and it's animated."

"Like I'd just _tell_ you!" Lance scoffed.

"Nah, it turns out alright."

"Hunk!"

"Coran and Allura are picking up the pizza," Shiro said over the noise, "But they should be here soon."

Keith nodded, dragging the barstools over to where they'd have a view of the tv and ignoring the way Hunk was cooing at his cat until it became obvious that Red had had enough.

"Give her here, Hunk," he said, collecting his cat and putting her down gently on the floor. "And it's alright, Pidge. I'm pretty sure I get to pick next time it's at his apartment. We can watch _Cats Don't Dance_."

Lance's groan got swallowed up in Pidge's laughter as Allura and Coran walked in with the pizza, right on time.

Keith closed the door behind them before Red could make a break for it, smiling until he thought his face might break.


End file.
